Venus
by fluffyisdeluded
Summary: She looked into his eyes and knew he was trouble. She knew this, because she was too. Elena Gilbert. Bad girl. Beauty queen. Rock star. Actress. Bitch. Can be translated as broken and bulimic. Damon Salvatore. Hollywood's lover boy. Dreamboat. Dreamer. Believed in happy endings. Could be read as rude, narcissistic, unloved. In a way, they fit together. Not that it meant anything.
1. One

**"The moment I saw you, I knew you'd be the closest I'd get to being…close. I didn't know what to do with that feeling. Happiness,"**

That day, Elena Gilbert would meet her next male co-star. Her next plaything. Something to toy with until she got bored with whatever guy she had on her arm, usually a guy which haunted the fantasies of teenage girls everywhere, guys which had calendars and stationery and t-shirts and bed sheets dedicated to their faces – yet none of them seemed to be enough to hold Elena Gilbert's attention for more than a few minutes.

Men. Especially actors - they were so vain. Blinded by their own beauty they couldn't even begin to comprehend the fact that someone _might not _be in love with them. Might never call them back. It was said that dating Elena Gilbert was demoralising. Like having your balls handed to you on a plate. She's beaten you again her her famous game of clue in which she always wins.

Elena Gilbert. Twenty-four years old and five foot six inches. Star of stage and screen. Winner of an Academy Award, three Oscars, a Bafta, and six Teen Choice Awards. Beauty queen.

She was venerated by fans internationally. She was leading lady in any boy's wet dream – and she knew it.

Elena was America's sweetheart, for fuck's sake. People worshipped her. Although she was beyond rich from the shitty chick flicks she literally sold herself too, or from couturier modelling campaigns or perhaps from the many covers of Vogue or Cosmopolitan– her life almost came free. People paid for complicated cocktails, for flamboyant cars to pick her up from fashionable venues, for cultural food and extensive travel – all for that one girl.

But she was some girl.

Dumb girls followed her around, emulating her every move, examining every bat of an eyelash or smirk, filled with feminine guile. Begging her for photos or signatures with their fake eyelashes and instagrams, each equipped with the naïve sliver of hope that one day they would be as 'perfect' as Elena Gilbert. An unattainable goal. She was far from perfect, anyway.

Elena couldn't stand those bratty, desperate teens who clamoured around her, throwing slips of paper in her face, catcalling and screaming.

_Why would they like you, anyway_, a voice in her head mocked her. Elena brushed it off. She wasn't just another piles of neuroses, insecurities, hopes and dreams anymore. She _was _the dream.

But people who really knew Elena Gilbert...well, they knew her. And Elena Gilbert was frankly a total bitch.

Superior. Shallow. Attention-seeking. That girl that everyone would come across one time in their lives at school or university or at work – the venomous popular girl. Except Elena was ten times more gorgeous, ten times more loved and ten times more deadly than any of those girls put together.

Elena Gilbert sat in the back of her chauffeur-driven Maserati, smoking a cigarette. She chewed one arm of her Ray Ban clubmaster sunglasses absent-mindedly; blowing wispy smoke rings out of red-painted lips (much to the driver's dismay). Out of all of her habits, which people loved-to-hate, being a diehard smoker was one of her most infamous.

_Who does this Damon Salvatore think he is_, Elena thought angrily, huffing like a small child. She would have stamped one of her heeled Chelsea-boot clad feet, were she not confined in the small space of the back of her car.

Elena liked her car. It was the embodiment of luxury – sleek, shiny, coveted, private and above all, expensive. Complete with blacked out, bulletproof windows and Italian leather furnishings. Just the thing to help her forget about her less-than-well-off past.

The only reminder of her sad, small town previous life was her little brother. Her pot smoking, class failing, bartender little brother. Jeremy. She had paid off his student loan, trying to coax him into university or college or _something_. Elena didn't want to have to say on Ellen DeGeneres that her sibling spent ninety percent of his existence playing on the Xbox or getting high. She didn't want Jeremy to live the no hoper life that she would have led if she hadn't posted her songs online, gone to recording studios and begged them to listen to her tapes, travelled to every audition in the US.

_It's because you love him_, a faint voice whispered from the bottom of that stone encrusted heart. Honey, Elena thought, that side of me was buried long ago with my Converses and braces combination and I don't know maybe _my parents_.

They pulled up at an obscenely expensive hotel, ten minutes away from her pent house in New York. Elena couldn't remember the name of it. All the names of the places she had been to had started to blur together. The chauffeur jumped from the front seat in a flash, opening the door for her, lowering his head as if it was indecorous to even look at her, fully decked out in a suit and tails. The young valet, looking to be about the same age as Jeremy, came up alongside, all flushed face and floppy hair.

"Can I take your car, Miss Gilbert," he choked out, eyes bulging obscenely wide, before bowing low. He had posters of her as a Victoria Secret Angel adorning his walls. Smirking, knowing his predicament, Elena just shrugged in response, not even bothering to look at him. She instead busied herself to adjusting her Burberry trench coat, flattening the checked silk of the playsuit she was sporting. She cheekily flashed her cleavage a little lower than decent when adjusting the neckline. The valet's jaw hit the flaw. The driver, used to this sort of condescending behaviour from the famous Elena Gilbert, turned to the stunned valet and pressed the keys into his gloved hand, ushering her into the building.

"Just hurry this up so I can get the fuck out of here and into better accommodation," she seethed huskily, her voice drawling and sloping over the syllables, thickened by years of tobacco addiction.

Her heels clicked as she was led to the dining hall, where she was supposed to be meeting the director of her latest movie (it was undoubtedly going to be all style and no substance) and her co-star. Another movie where she fell in love with some perfect guy in a perfect setting.

"Elena!" she heard a familiar male voice call, and she moved in that direction to be faced with Alaric, grinning from ear to ear, almost knocking her off her Louboutin's with his inevitable bear hug.

"Ric!" Elena squealed, equally thrilled. Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad movie after all. Not with Alaric Saltzman, the most famous indie movie director of all time, at the helm.

Alaric was basically her surrogate father. After meeting in a hipster bar in LA, he had introduced Elena to Hollywood as a newbie, acting as her agent despite already being a fully-fledged, thriving hotshot in the movie business. Not in a pervy, married man shopping in the teenage department way. He was a married man, a loyal husband.

She tossed mahogany curls over one shoulder, smiling up at him, all doe eyes and innocent smile. Almost child-like, wrapping him around her little finger.

This whole charade made one Damon Salvatore want to vomit and flip off that high-and-mighty materialistic little bitch already. Just from the interviews. You could say that he liked to do his research. He was an actual actor. He didn't associate with chick-flick teeny bopper divas, sucking up to _his _best friend with creamy, coltish legs and not-so-pure doe eyes. Damon had no tolerance for home wreckers.

Little did he know, neither did she.

"Elena, honey, this is Damon Salvatore,"

Elena looked into his eyes and knew he was trouble.

She knew this, because she was too.

**Hi guys! I'm deleting Charmed, my other fanfic, for the time being, because I thought it was a little too much like this plot. PM me if you want it back : )**

**I know I've made Elena a little Katherine-ish (AKA very OOC) for the moment but I'm replicating when Elena had turned off her humanity. Note that she is brutally honest (a quality of emotionless Elena). Therefore there is room for her to 'get nice' (for lack of better words). **


	2. Two

Elena stepped through the doorway of her apartment cursing the name of Damon Salvatore.

She stormed into her bedroom, throwing her Hermés Birkin on to the hardwood floors and flopping on to the pristine bed. The maid must have come, judging by the way the Egyptian cotton sheets had been folded over to reveal spotless Eiderdown pillows. Her worn teddy bear had been placed under the sheets. Elena growled, rolling on to her tummy and burrowing into the impossibly soft sheets.

Elena was infuriated. Not only that, she was exhausted.

She pulled off the chunky heeled boots, massaging her skinny ankles. Even she could see how overly thin her legs were – how the unmarred olive skin stretched around her bones in a skeletal fashion.

Elena was fully aware of the growing need to apply foundation around her eyes to conceal the sallow, sunken sockets of someone who exercised too much and ate too little. The angular jut of her ribs, the increasing dip between her shoulder bones. She could go on forever.

But the mirror – the mirror was her kryptonite.

In the pallid glow of the glass, her shoulders were too wide; her stomach intoned, her thighs too bulky.

Or maybe that was just the projection of what she thought of herself. Elena didn't care either way.

All she knew is that she mustn't keep food in her body. Under any circumstances.

If she gained even a tiny bit of weight, the gossip blogs would have a field day. Paparazzi would be hounding her like animals; the cameras flaring like gunshots, blinding her, a deer caught in the headlights, capturing her worst angle for front-page news. She could see every bitchy article now, saying that she was fat, but skirting around the actual word. Obviously, they were only allowed to _imply _a gain of weight. It didn't make it hurt any less.

But she had never been so humiliated – even when Perez Hilton called her, without embellishment, fugly (it was okay, everyone loved her anyways) – as she had by one Damon Salvatore.

That vain, self-obsessed, good-looking douchebag.

There's an unsaid rule. Never call a girl out on her bitchiness. That's between girls and girls only.

_ "Some guys don't like divas, Miss Gilbert. But I guess you wouldn't know that, judging from recent articles. I'm not just a pretty face. I do my research,"_

_"Not everyone falls at your feet, little girl. It's about time you realised that,"_

The words of Damon Salvatore. They repeated in her head like a mantra, over and over and over.

But maybe somewhere in that blackened heart of hers, she felt a tiny bit of hurt.

Because for the first time, a guy hadn't flattered her, whipped before she had even spared them a glance. Damon hadn't even brushed his fingers across her arm, or moved his chair an almost unnoticeable amount closer to hers. He was repulsed by her.

Elena could see the disgust written all over his sculpted face, in those stoic, silvery hues, in the twitch of his strong jaw as he watched her. The dismissive way in which she spoke to the waitress. The careless manner in which she listened to Alaric, playing with the ends of chocolate hair, casting her eyes to her lap, long lashes brushing her cheeks leaving a shadow, examining red-painted nails, chewing bubble gum.

Damon thought he was a superior, spoilt little girl.

Elena knew that full well.

She dressed quickly, pulling a black sheer crop top over her head, her navel piercing winking from just above her high-waisted Levi-shorts, which were impossibly short. She accessorized with a men's heavy leather jacket (which may or may not have belonged to an ex-boyfriend, as it still smelled of cologne) and white canvas flat forms, laced up like sneakers.

Today was the press conference, in aid of some charity she couldn't remember. If it was kids in Africa or abandoned puppies, she'd want to be there. Not because she wanted to look compassionate, which is what she told herself, but because Elena Gilbert _was _compassionate.

She didn't bother to dress up. They wanted _the_ Elena Gilbert, and that didn't involve the Armani Prive dress she'd had lined up for a Gala. This was a press conference, and she would have to talk about Wanderlust, Alaric's new hopefully not shit film. It had to be pretty shit if she had been chosen for it, but hey, it's all money.

She hadn't been to a press conferencein a while. They need someone to bring in the headlines, she thought.

Elena didn't know just how right she was.

The press conference was held in a wide hall, at the top floor of the outlandishly expensive hotel she had met Damon and Alaric at earlier that morning.

Elena sat in between the pair of men, Damon scowling, making no attempt to hide his boredom and anger (and he said she was spoilt) and Alaric's sandy eyebrows pulled together, wishing to fucking whatever God there was that Elena and Damon would pretend they were in love, or liked each other, or tolerated each other, For the love of Christ, he was married with a kid - he didn't need to get involved in the high school drama that Damon hated so much yet was handing out in dishes to Elena. What was he, in love with her or something?

Alaric snuck a peek at his best friend. No, Damon was definitely not in love with her. Alaric would have liked to think the death stare he was giving Elena was some sort of passionate love trance, but maybe it was wishful thinking. At least they were both here. In the same room.

Elena couldn't stop staring. At Damon. It must have been the light or something – but he was looking so beautiful, all thick, soft sooty curls and icy eyes mixing with lazy smiles and roughened stubble.

Elena had to physically restrain herself from smiling, for the first time ever. Smiling was lame. She would smudge her lipstick and it would be downwards from there.

"Elena! Over here!"

"Question here, Mr. Saltzman!"

Journalists were shoving and shouting and elbowing, like rats, crawling over each other, infesting the hotel. Men and women decked out with state of the art cameras and poring over notebooks, waved their hands in the air, desperate to ask questions.

"The man in the front with the tan waistcoat," Alaric tried to bellow over the chaos, and the room was momentarily silenced as the little man, dwarfed by his huge camera, took centre stage.

"This is for you, Elena Gilbert," Elena gave the balding journalist a forced, fleeting smile, before lowering her eyes to the table, playing on her iPhone, "Is the plot of your new movie, Wanderlust, based on your own loss of your parents aged sixteen?" he asked.

Elena feels numb.

So that was the plot of the movie. Huh. Guess she should have listened more.

She can literally feel the colour leaving her skin, the consistent olive fading into a greenish-white, staining her skin like spreading ink. Elena tasted what she thought was blood in her mouth. That metallic taste, filling her mouth, spewing out from her lungs. It's only your imagination, she thought. You're not drowning. Remember what the therapist told you. Think of things you like. Bourbon, clothes, holidays. All these things made her mind spin, the cogs turning at an unstoppable rate.

At that moment, Elena Gilbert leans forward over the panel, and vomits on to the ground.

Momentarily, Damon wanted to laugh. Laugh at the humiliation of the brattish pop star being sick on to the floor in front of hundreds of people. The bitch deserved it.

But when finally he looks at her, he feels something. Is it guilt?

No, he thinks of course not. Damon Salvatore doesn't feel guilt.

But Elena's face was milky white, big black circles under exhausted doe eyes suddenly more noticeable, the tears leaking out of the corners smearing her makeup, spitting puke on to the plush carpet.

Damon looks at those sad brown eyes, wide and scared. And she looks so sad and innocent and confused. And so fucking lost.

Being lost is a thing Damon Salvatore is well acquainted with.

He stood up, the female audience still having the audacity to witter away about his pale, bulging abs, visible under the thin cotton, and giggle at Elena's embarrassment.

Fucking hell, Damon, he snarled to himself, you've only known the girl a day. He resisted his better judgment.

Damon placed one warm hand on the small of her back from behind her swivel chair and he feels her jump at the contact, trying to squirm away.

Elena was slowly soothed by the comfort of the hand between her jutting shoulder bones. As she relaxed, Damon put his other hand underneath her legs and lifted her strangely weightless body into his arms. His eyebrows pull together when he realises this girl weighs about as much as a baby bird and is just as delicate.

Despite her protests, he tucks her head into the manly scent of his leather jacket, much similar to hers, as she breathes in the cologne-and-leather-and-Damon oddly soothing combination. Hiding her from the world.

He carries her out of the deathly silent hall, hoards of journalists watching, not daring to take pictures when faced with the menacing blue gaze of Damon Salvatore. No words were needed.

This girl was so tiny. So breakable. Yet so tough. Had he not been holding her in his arms, from her bored, I-could-care-less exterior, he would never have known.

"It'll be okay, doll," he whispers, and for the first time, she dares to think that maybe it will.

**Sorry it took so long! I had school : ( **

**Read and review! You don't understand how much your reviews mean to me. They make my day.**


	3. Three

They ran over lines in the Plaza hotel, almost in silence, for three hours. Elena Gilbert had literally not stopped blushing the entire morning. She was sure, for the first time since she could remember; she looked horrible - all flushed and sweaty and shy. For some reason despite straightening her hair that morning, every time she brushed it out of her eyes it would spring back into her natural waves. Her tiny shorts insisted on being a little too tight for her, and every time she passed a mirror she would notice little imperfections in her face. She was boiling under the cashmere, slouchy sweater stolen from yet another of her many ex-boyfriends to cloak all of this.

All under Damon's smouldering eyes. Screw that. All because of Damon's smouldering eyes.

Elena Gilbert didn't notice this, but this was her insecurity. Something she had felt once, if she even remembered when she wasn't famous.

Damon was watching her every move in a way that would be creepy if he was any less hot. And he certainly was hot. Very hot. Elena Gilbert didn't deny that for a second.

She had felt those blue, blue eyes burning into her all day. It was strange how they were cerulean as the sky and pale and silvery as gossamer yet a mere gaze could hold an inferno.

As she surveyed her script, lounging languorously on the plush settee, Damon was struggling with himself. She was not cute. Hot, he could handle. Sure. Many girls were hot. Especially with legs splayed out like those and all that luscious, creamy skin she exposed. But that little twinge he felt in his heart every time she did one of those… things. That was not on. No way in hell was his eternal bachelorhood being thwarted by some Hollywood brat.

Damon looked up to glimpse her every so often, hoping she hadn't noticed. Of course she had. But Damon was a guy and he didn't have the intuition for this kind of thing. He caught himself wanting to kiss her right on her button nose as she scrunched it up in a frown. Stop right there, Salvatore, you pussy.

Just at that moment, Elena peeked out from behind her script, smirking.

"It's rude to spy on a lady, Mr. Salvatore," she chastised, and Damon, to his chagrin, involuntarily lowered his eyes a little, running his hands through soft sooty hair. Don't look intimidated, Damon thought - she's spoilt. A bitch. You only took her home yesterday because it's what anyone would do, he reminded himself.

"Did you sleep okay?" he forced out, grinding his teeth.

After the conference last night he had desperately hailed a cab, Elena still limp in his arms. Damon had been worried. Funnily enough, he hadn't been that worried about someone since his mother had died. It was probably just nerves, he told himself. She had been so cold and pale and tiny. Damon had never been so aggressive with fans and paparazzi, shouldering them out of the way while shielding her with his jacket. Like a boyfriend. He hoped people still realised how much he hated the two-faced bitch.

But secretly, Damon knew he couldn't quite bring himself to hate her.

It had been almost nightfall when they'd reached her spacious apartment, and Elena had been all calm and sleepy and adorable.

Damon kicked himself. Of course she wasn't adorable, she was just another attention-seeker. Sometimes you have to listen to what the media said. Every gossip website had some negative rant about her, her frequent grief-sex activities, her risqué choice of clothing, you name it.

I must have been so wasted to take her home after that stupid conference fiasco, he thought bitterly.

But he knew full well he had been completely sober.

Damon had done all those sappy lovey-dovey whipped things that his baby bro did with the evil-slut, or Katherine as she was less commonly known, that Damon had sworn off from the second he lost his virginity.

Damon had made sure she brushed her teeth after vomiting so violently, drawn her a bath, even prepared her some cute little pyjamas for after she was clean.

He wanted to vomit himself at this. Soon he would be gelling his hair, writing a diary and telling the tabloids about his love for abandoned puppies.

The last thing he wanted to be was superhero-movie star Stefan Salvatore. Or as most people knew him, Superman – or Damon Salvatore's less hot brother.

Damon had tucked the skinny, olive-skinned girl into bed, swaddling her in duvet until she was swamped, almost unrecognisable in her lair. Elena had murmured her thanks all the while, mascara still marking underneath her eyes in shadowy circles. Then, Damon Salvatore had kissed her soft forehead with cool, velvety lips. Not before fumbling around her kitchen for Tylenol and a glass of water, proceeding to force her to swallow them.

Damon remembered the smell of cigarettes and perfume and bubble gum on her breath, the Polaroids and murals covering the walls of her bedroom, the fur jacket throw over the couch.

But weirdly enough, Damon couldn't imagine having done it any other way. He couldn't have left her, a deer in the headlights, puking over the podium. He couldn't have dumped her in a taxi and forced the exhausted girl to make her own way home. He didn't want to see her hurt or uncared for.

He'd tried – God he'd tried – to cast it out of his mind. He'd gone home that night in a daze, but his last thought had been how he wished he had talked to her a little more. How she looked like she needed love and affection and maybe inside so did he.

Bullshit. He must have not been thinking straight.

Looking up from the wad of lines she was studying, prescription Gucci glasses placed on the top of her head, Elena's doe eyes became comically wide at the mention of last night.

"Yeah. Ummmm…" Get yourself together, Gilbert, she thought, standing up a little straighter and winking, "Great after you tucked me in. Thanks, by the way," she slurred.

He had to remind himself that he hated her. That she probably did this to all those lusty teenage boys.

"Yeah well. According to Ric you get slutty when you're sad. We don't want to have another Mason Lockwood incident," Damon responded.

Elena turned beet red immediately, which then faded to that greened colour she had gotten after that question at the conference.

Shit. Now I've upset her, Damon thought. She'll probably go tattle to Ric.

"You should be the first person not to believe everything you read. But if you're going to go for that, I think the amount of girls you've screwed and used is fucking disgusting," she spat out, choking on her own tears.

"I'm just telling it like it is, sweetheart," he countered. But he knew he was in the wrong. Damon could see those chocolate eyes glistening with the beginnings of tears, her body quivering from effort not to shed them underneath that huge jumper she was wearing.

Elena ran.

She came out of that stupid hotel they met at to review their scripts so fast she got whiplash.

Sure, that's what she did when she was depressed - had sex. When she thought of her parents. When she thought of how many times people have walked all over her with no regard to her actual feelings. Or maybe when she thought about how many people hated her without justification, how many parents describe her as a bad influence. She slept with guys to dull the pain. She wasn't proud of it. Occasionally, she took drugs, but the sex brought back less bad memories and less guilt.

Elena Gilbert was hurt. Of course, guys had treated her badly more than they had treated her well, but she had shot back with equal contempt, using them as a fix before dumping them on their asses. But no guy had ever spoken to her like that. Humiliated her. Called her out on her own not-so-pure behaviour.

She had even been starting to like Damon. Elena stopped that thought before it got any further. They had known each other all of three days.

Paparazzi swarmed around her, their cameras flashing as they descended upon her. She still sometimes forgot she was even famous. Young fans reached towards her with paper, and through blurry eyes she signed her name, not even bothering to throw them a smile or add a heartfelt message. Everyone loves a bad girl. Maybe she should start to reevaluate that phrase after the events of today.

"Elena! Over here!" shouts one eager, British sounding journalist. Shit, she thought, blinking back tears rapidly before turning to him, fumbling in one pocket of her sheepskin jacket for a cigarette and her lighter, "Can you give a statement about the rumours regarding you and Damon Salvatore, your latest co-star?"

Elena rolled her kohl-rimmed eyes. All she needed was a moment to recuperate. She was Elena Gilbert. Resident rebel.

"Trust me, I wouldn't touch him if he was…" Elena was cut off by another voice – silky, like pouring butter, bouncing off of each word, joining them together in a country twang.

"She confirms it,"

Damon was panting heavily from running down fourteen flights of stairs, those sculpted muscles heaving in his abdomen.

Before Elena could retort in shock, she felt arms wind around her and lips on hers.

It was a kiss like his eyes. The cool pink softness of his lips contrasting with the fiery, drugging, lazy kisses. She could feel his smile against her almost unmoving, repeatedly pressing soft butterfly kisses all along her lips like a ritual. His arms encircled her waist, holding her skinny figure against him.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, feeling her delicate ribs, the skeleton of a small animal.

Elena Gilbert stepped back, slack-jawed, before slapping Damon so hard a resounding crack was heard for miles outside the Plaza.


	4. Four

Elena slowly woke up.

Eyelids fluttering like wings of a butterfly.

Opening lethargically slow to reveal sleepy brown eyes.

Smoke hung in the air, trickling in choking tendrils. Sunlight seeped through the shutters, spilling out on to Elena's queen-size bed.

Fuck, she thought, scrambling to run her fingers through her bed-head, the other hand wandering across her bed-side table like a spider, searching for paracetamol or cigarettes or water or maybe all three. She swallowed two pills dry, before swigging from a glass of vodka that had been sitting on her bedside table for God knows how long. Shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun, she tried to remember what the hell happened last night.

Last night was just a huge blur. She only remembered flashes of colours, neons and pastels, blurring together like water on a painted canvas, and sounds. Whirs and clicks like cogs moving. She knew she had had a high.

It was familiar feeling – the dehydration, the sensitivity to light, the blurry vision with a side order of where-the-fuck-am-I. The numbness creeping into her bones, deadening her, making every task a marathon. But hey, if it took drugs to stop her from feeling, she wasn't going to say no. Anything to be the emotionless Elena Gilbert again.

If feeling meant remembering, she sure as hell wasn't going down that road. A cold sweat had accumulated on her skin, and her cheeks were flushed red. She took a deep, quivering breath, filling her lungs slowly. Elena couldn't shake off the feeling of a presence, like someone was lurking in the corner of her eye. If she had bothered to look in a mirror, she would have been able to see her pupils, so dilated that her eyes were almost completely black, the warm brown irises obliterated by darkness.

Elena's hands begun to shake uncontrollably, teeth chattering, and she leaned back into the pillows of her bed. Usually she woke up in some place she had never been before, and would have to pay off a taxi-driver her to take her home and forget that they ever saw her. She panted, unable to catch her breath. All her muscles and limbs cramped.

The light burnt her eyes, fizzing and tingly, so many questions and thoughts coming into her head and once she could process anything.

She felt like shit. A bad trip was common. But this? This had never happened.

Elena leaned over the side of her bed and retched, saliva and water forced out from her otherwise empty stomach, as her belly involuntarily lurched at the smell. The coloured pills slowly fell to the floor of her bedroom as she slipped into another dreamless sleep. One pill with a heart imprinted on to it, and another with an arrow.

It was ironic, really.

This was how Damon Salvatore found her.

* * *

"Final call, had anyone seen Elena?" shouted Alaric, who should have been starting to have second thoughts about choosing Elena. She was unreliable and certainly wasn't right for the part of sweet, naïve Katerina in the film. But in Ric's eyes, Elena could do no wrong. She was his pure, innocent flower. Damon cringed.

Pure innocent flower his ass.

He still had the red fingerprints on his cheek and bruised ego to show for it.

"Well someone's gonna have to go find her. We're not going to miss another day of filming just because little Miss. Primadonna is sleeping in," drawled Damon, crossing his arms.

"We've already called her driver, her agent, hell, even her mom. She isn't answering. You're going to have to go over to her apartment,"

To Damon's horror, Alaric turned to him when he made this revelation.

"Why me? You chose her, you pick her up! She's twenty-one, not five. She should take her job seriously and be here on time instead of fucking with all of us,"

"Come on, Damon. I have to have some other reason for casting you apart from that you're my best buddy. Let the paparazzi catch you and Elena together. It'll be great publicity for the film," Alaric reasoned, running a hand through his sandy hair. He frequently checked in the mirror for grey hairs that may have arisen from being Damon Salvatore's best friend.

"I am not pretending to be Elena Gilbert's boy toy! If you want a guy like that you should have called Stefan," Damon snarled, tensing his currently unshaven jaw.

"We both know that Stefan's producing his new movie. I'm stuck with the useless brother until further notice,"

Alaric pressed her address into his hand, and guided him off the set by the shoulder, as you would a small, confused child. Damon shrugged him off and stormed to the exit. He'll get over it, thought Alaric. Hopefully.

* * *

Damon arrived at the expensive apartment building hours after getting so lost in his Camaro that he had had to call his driver to come rescue him as well as having to fight past hoardes of paparazzi all with the same question on their mind. His relationship with one tiny brunette.

He didn't even know why he was still searching for precious Elena. He should just let her lose the job, and then they would cast a different, more desperate, sluttier girl. A girl who he could just screw and forget.

Damon had been knocking on the door for half an hour now. He had tried ringing the doorbell, shouting through the letterbox. He was fucking cold and pissed off.

After all but giving up, he heard shuffling and banging behind the door of number 28, accompanied by mumbling and unintelligible words. The door burst open.

Elena was greenish white, a colour he had become accustomed to seeing her.

But this, this was disgusting.

Who had left her like this, he had no idea, but he knew from her eyes – indolent and inebriated, swallowed by her pupil – drugs. Ecstasy to be specific.

Damon had seen celebrities fall down this spiral before. Usually there was never profound after effects. But on such a delicate, tiny girl – she looked wrecked. Elena shook so much she could barely stand, and her hands had clearly quivered so much she hadn't been able to open the door. Vomit had collected in the usually healthy lustrous curls of her hair, sticking to the sweat-slicked, waxy skin of her forehead. The skin on her arms was raw and bleeding from scratching, marred by the stress and paranoia of a bad trip.

The sweatpants she was wearing were dotted with blood stains, small and far between, but undeniably there. The huge black hoody she was cloaked in brought out the circles under her stimulated eyes, her sweet, confused face clearly unable to keep up with the speed her brain was moving, causing the wheels to stop turning altogether.

Damon surveyed her worriedly, eyebrows pulling together in guilt.

Something must have happened to this poor girl. Something fucking dark and bad and torturous.

He had to put one heavy hand on her arm to steady her, as she swayed, almost falling over backwards. Damon let himself in, one arm protectively looped around her miniscule waist, as she wretched and wriggled. He drew circles on the cramping muscles in her tummy soothingly, as the warmth made the agonising pain wane a little for the crazed girl.

Damon barely made it through the door before she jumped backwards, doe eyes darting around, resembling a deer more than ever. While doing this, a multitude of rainbow pills fell from the pockets of her sweats. Damon crushed them under his foot.

He would help her. Damon Salvatore was coming to the fucking rescue.

He was such an idiot, he thought, guiltily watching the whole horrible ordeal unfold as she tried to navigate towards her own kitchen, but failing miserably, getting lost in her own house. He would have thought it was cute if it wasn't so tragic.

"Mason," she murmured, eyelids flickering open and closed, focusing those glazed eyes on him, gasping for breath before falling over backwards completely. Damon caught her immediately, dragging her limp body against his, as she snuffled his cool neck with her burning, reddened cheek, hiding herself in the crook of his neck.

Damon didn't even supress what he was thinking. Who would give drugs to someone so beautiful, so perfect and delicate? Yes, a little rough and tumble on the outside, but it was all too clear how innocent she really was, her skinny knees knocking together as she vibrated. Like a hummingbird, thrumming with life, yet so easily snuffed out.

"No, pretty girl," he whispered, stroking the damp hair from her tortured forehead, "It's Damon,"

* * *

**Just to explain, Elena took ecstasy to 'help her not to feel' anything for Damon as she got nervous she was getting vulnerable after the big thing that happened to her.**

**Next chapter will hopefully be a little bit happier than my past ones :)**

**Read and review!**


	5. Five

Navigation had never been Damon's strong point. Especially in Elena's spacious penthouse.

But he could hardly say it was a hardship feeling her nose press into the skin of his neck, the messy dark waves of her hair whispering against his shoulders as he carried her.

Damon had to stop himself from delving further into more inappropriate thoughts about this girl. Whom he barely knew.

Well. Barely knew was an exaggeration.

Before they truly met that fateful morning at the Plaza hotel, Elena Gilbert had graced him with her unforgettable presence. Not that she had known, of course.

Damon had been barely famous once. Appeared in a guest role in a couple of television shows and extras in movies. He had been an ordinary boy surrounded by shining stars and champagne and Armani and unnatural perfection.

It was at a charity event he had first seen Elena Gilbert.

When he closed his eyes, just sometimes, he could remember seeing her. Parts of her from that night.

Painted red lips set in an otherwise fresh face, which looked as sweet as he imagined they tasted. Form fitting black velvet, leaving his eyes wandering over her coffee coloured skin. But mostly, Damon saw irises so brown they were almost black - warm and a little bit shy but innocent, twinkling with mirth.

* * *

Damon Salvatore had been sitting by the bar, dejected, asking himself why in hell he chose to be an actor, why he chose to be humiliated like this. Oh. Yeah. Because otherwise he would be a lawyer at his dad's firm sitting behind a desk while he lost not only his hair but his emotions too.

It was worrying when, while staring into the bottom of his crystal bourbon glass, he considered applying for this job.

Yeah, he was at a party packed full of A-listers, with cocktails on tap and the opportunity to mingle with the best in the business. But they bored him to tears. They should be leading exciting lives – rebelling and getting drunk and sleeping with pretty girls. But instead they droned on, reminding his of his father, about lighting and mood and novel ways of getting into character. Fuck this, he thought, about to down another bourbon.

That's when he heard her. When time stopped and he turned around before he even knew what he was doing. A peal of laughter, like church bells in the Italian summers of his childhood.

She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life.

He couldn't find one thing about her he didn't like about this girl, standing in the centre of the room, surrounded by clamouring people. She was just so alive. She was the Sun among stars, her head thrown back in glee, her hand resting on a friend's shoulder. This girl, Damon thought, was the most colourful thing in this room.

The girl's eyes landed on Damon's fleetingly, Damon swore his heart stopped.

Damon had never been shy or awkward or even remotely bothered about what anyone had thought about him. But when he finally built up the courage to speak to her, the girl was gone as if she had never been there. It was just as well, he had thought. He probably would have fucked it up anyway.

That girl was the infamous Elena Gilbert. An epiphany he had only come to two days ago.

* * *

He eventually found Elena's bedroom. Or what he supposed to be her bedrooms, as she reached out to it in her stupor, before flopping back on to his chest, making pathetic whimpering sounds.

Damon laid her twitching, barely conscious body underneath the mountain of duvet, laying a cool palm over her burning forehead.

Those deep brown eyes darted around, glazed and confused, as she panted helplessly.

"Come on, 'Lena. Breathe deeply. Relax. Keep your eyes open," he murmured worriedly, tucking the comforter around her. He could just about see her reddened little nose above the cover; her eyelids flickering open and closed.

Damon looked down and saw her, small and skinny and positively green coloured. She was still angelic. He bent down without thinking and fleetingly kissed her damp forehead as she tossed and turned.

Damon wet a flannel from the en suite bathroom, before wiping off the smeared black make-up from greenish, almost translucent skin. His heart wrenched as he remembered the girl at the party he had seen all those years ago, how she had changed until she was almost unrecognisable.

She was still beautiful, though.

Damon searched through her dresser for her pyjamas, only finding a pair of sweatpants and a hoody. He tried to take the comforter off her, but she wriggled and fought.

"No, Mason! Get away from me! I don't want to!" she sobbed and gasped.

"Shhhhh… Elena, it's Damon. You know. Damon Salvatore? The eternal stud? Every girl remembers me," he smiled despite himself, but tears still rolled down her cheeks.

"Those booty shorts, no matter how much I love them, can't be comfortable when your muscles are cramping," he joked, rubbing circles soothingly on her back, awkwardly straddling her. He managed to pacify her for a minute, and she hid her face in his chest. He hovered above her as he popped open the button at the top of her shorts, revealing her flat, toned stomach, a glistening navel piercing emphasising the curve of muscle heaving underneath her skin.

He slid them down, Elena's underwear bared. In any other situation he would of laughed at her and asked if she could get anymore clingy. But she was adorable (he cringed inwardly) and sick and not in a good state of mind, and she didn't know what to do with her skinny, pin like legs which stuck out of the covers as she mewled.

"I'm also gonna have to take this out, doll," he whispered, taking a hold of the diamond that was entrenched in her belly button, unscrewing it as she silently sobbed, slowly coming back to earth. Blood began to rush back into her cheeks as he warmed her still uncontrollably flinching little body.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" she stuttered, taking long breaths in order to get the words out. Her pupils still obscured much of her irises, and it was an effort for her even to talk.

"I'm not nice," he said, leaning a little closer to her, lips inches from hers, "I'm mean,"

"I'm so cold," she ground out, shaking for emphasis.

Damon began unbuttoning his jeans and kicking off his combat boots. He shed the rest of his undoubtedly expensive clothes, revealing a sculpted bare chest, marble-smooth.

Elena cast terrified eyes over him, scrambling away.

Did she think he was going to rape her or something? Damon shook his head in pity.

"No, Elena, sweetie," he said hurriedly, "Skin to skin contact helps heat transfer. Shit, 'Lena, I'm trying to help you," he bit out, wriggling his strong body into the tiny space Elena begrudgingly gave up, covering them both with the sheets.

He dragged her almost weightless body into his arms, and he chuckled at her stare of almost naïve wonder at the hard muscle that bound him, and the holy cross tattoo that spread in sinister black carvings underneath one arm, sprawling over his ribcage.

"I hate you," she croaked half-heartedly.

"I hate you too," he chuckled, looping an arm around her waist.

Elena breathing gradually slowed. Her burning forehead cooled against Damon's skin, while the bluish tone of her skin waned into a yellowish olive, blood rushing back to her cheeks. Sweat dried on her forehead. The whispers of voices of the past were only faint now.

Her limbs still screamed out in protest when he could not stop them moving without her consent. The room still spun, slowly but surely on its axis.

As Damon wrapped her in his arms, cocooned in duvet, she realised that the pain lessened. All she could smell was the faint scent of cologne and peppermint and something distinctly Damon that lingered wherever he went. It was heady and strangely comforting.

Damon would have one hell of a time explaining to Alaric why he had headed to Elena's house planning to call her out on her bitchy, ignorant ways and instead landed up in her bead. And wonder of wonders, in the most innocent way possible.

Usually, if she ever had a bad trip, she would have to pant it out alone, sweating and keening, heart racing one thousand miles per hour, sure she would die.

"Just to confirm, Gilbert, I still think you're a spoilt brat," he said quickly. But she was already asleep. He could feel the rhythm of her breath against his neck, her weak, tiny body curled around his.

Damon tried not to think it, but he could get used to this.

And something told him that in Elena's countless trysts with Hollywood's heartthrobs, she had never had a man hold her before.


	6. Six

Damon had cooked every breakfast food in the Salvatore cookbook. And the Salvatores – being Italian – didn't do anything half way, especially when it involved food.

Laid out on Elena's marble island, dominating the huge kitchen of the flat, were fluffy, yellow scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, hash browns, chocolate chip pancakes - you name it. The rich, sickly sweet scent of burnt sugar now masked the constant dull overtones of cigarette smoke and dust that had long since permanently ingratiated itself into the flat. Damon padded across the marble floor, bare-chested, only wearing his jeans from the day before, the muscles in his back bunching together as he balanced a multitude of foods on a tray, chewing on his reddened bottom lip.

"Wake up, 'Lena," he whispered in her ear, shaking her shoulder minutely.

She moved so little he almost didn't see it, a flutter of a humming bird's wing, before slumping back into bed. One of Elena's eyes flickered open, revealing bloodshot eyes, covered in a film.

"Come on, Elena, I know your faking," he joked, jostling her a little more in her position, standing among the vinyl records and expensive clothes and perfume bottles and lighters, not to mention thousands of other things, which lined the floor of her room.

Elena lay still.

Then, Damon began to worry.

"Fuck, Elena, wake up, this isn't funny anymore,"

She took great wheezing breaths, filling her tar stained lungs slowly. He pulled the covers off of her, picking up the flannel from her bedside which was now ice cold, but still sodden. Frantically, Damon placed it on her jaunty ribcage, in the hope the freezing water would shock her awake. Elena jumped, eyes shooting open.

Damon tried his hardest not to look like he cared – he tried to think more about the repulsive yellow residue sticking to her eyelashes and how unattractive she was at the moment.

Who was he kidding?

"For a minute there I thought you were a goner. Would have missed the famous Salvatore breakfast," he looked down at his watch and cringed, "Or brunch," he smirked, "It seems we slept in,"

Elena weakly rolled her eyes, grunting a little. Damon couldn't help smile at the cuteness.

"Ok, piglet, up you get. Can you stand?" he asked, and she pouted, annoyance storming in expressive eyes, Elena struggled, feebly pulling herself up by the bedpost, revealing obvious veins pulsing like rivers on a map on her tiny little wrists, various bangles and charms draped over them. Eventually, she gripped Damon's shoulder for support like a baby trying to take its first steps, and struggled over the side of her bed.

Elena Gilbert, queen of elegance, landed in a heap on the floor, dazed. She stared up at her covers in different magazines, which were stuck on the ceiling, in wonder at her many faces, all wearing the same cloyingly sweet, sultry smile. It was as if they were laughing at her.

Oh, little Elena Gilbert. Such an embarrassment. Letting cocky, superior Damon Salvatore act like you need to be babied? In your day you could have walked all over him.

Elena's own voice whirled around inexorably in her head. She blinked twice. This was it; she thought, surrounded by clothes and magazines and class A drugs and her own vomit. I've hit rock bottom. She opened her eyes wide for the first time, clearing them of the mucus that had collected in them, her heart racing, soaring, and she was sure she could hear the blood pelting and whooshing around her veins.

She registered eyes so clear and wide and innocent (or dangerous), and a hand steadying her back. Was that pity? Elena couldn't tell. She'd never seen pity before.

She didn't have the strength to fight it off anyway. Elena looked down sheepishly and realised that Damon had dressed her in Lady and the Tramp patterned sweat pants, and giggled, blushing slightly.

No, no, no. Elena Gilbert did not blush.

"You know I can walk, right? This is all very sweet Prince Charming, but I don't do morning after or hugging or shit. I get my hit, then I get on with doing what I do best," she croaked, and winced at how pathetic she sounded.

"You were really pretty likeable before you went back to being a bitch," he growled, but still kept his hand on her back, steadying her as she began to struggle a little.

"Don't you dare feel sorry for me," she shot back, rolling on to her stomach, hiding herself under a fur slip she found near her bed.

"Stop being such a child," he hissed, and, hooking her securely into his arms, lifted her by her middle, before carrying her, growling and fighting, to the kitchen. She made sure to smack his bare chest – and yes, it was as hard as it looked.

Elena was assaulted by the smell of warm, thick pancakes, of oozing chocolate and buttered toast. Her stomach lurched. She bit her lip hard. Food means calories, which means gaining weight, which means ugly.

"You know you want to, baby," he whispered teasingly, prodding her stomach.

She scowled in response, pushing his hands away.

"I'm not your baby," Damon sighed in response. He just couldn't win.

He plopped her down on one of the tall chairs dotted around the island, his bare feet cold on the smooth white flooring, the chandelier no longer looming in an unnerving way above him. Damon was feeling at home - dare he say, domestic?

And he didn't understand why the fuck he was helping this girl. Apart from the fact she was without doubt the most stunning creature he had ever seen.

Damon placed a plate of bacon, pancakes, scrambled eggs and hash browns in front of her. She just stared at it. Almost like she was confused.

"Are you going to eat it or just stare at it?"

Elena awkwardly dug into her meal, uncomfortable under Damon's stare. She wolfed down the pancakes first, feeling the chocolate chips melt on her tongue, drowning them in maple syrup until they were burningly sweet.

"Someone was hungry," he drawled. He wondered if she could possibly get any cuter, almost unable to talk she had so much food in her mouth. Her chestnut hair hung messily around her face, and her eyes were glued to her food. When she had cleaned her plate, he realised her had been sitting there, mouth open, drooling over her for the entire meal.

"Thanks," she huffed, barely used to the word, "I'm going to the bathroom,"

Well that was rude.

It was not until he passed the bathroom door to get a shirt rather than hang around the flat naked half the time that he heard what was really going on.

Retching. The guttural scraping of someone trying to empty their stomach.

Damon pulled the door open before he could stop himself.

He found her hunched over the toiled, two fingers forced down her little throat, as she emptied her entire meal, almost whole, into the toilet.

Elena gasped.

"Get out!" she shrieked, her voice breaking, "I don't want you here!"

Damon looked so disappointed. She curled up in a ball and pressed her forehead against the bathroom tiles, tears running down her face.

"Mia cara," he hushed her, taking her in his arms, her tiny body moulding to his figure as he sat with her tucked behind his knees on the floor. He kissed her again and again on the forehead and against the downy baby hairs sparsely littering the back of her neck, in the hope that enough kisses would make the pain disappear.


	7. Seven

"Damon. We cannot film a movie with Elena under house arrest and you patrolling her every move like her father," said Alaric, annunciating each word as you would to a child in the hope Damon understood. Sometimes dealing with Damon was like dealing with a child, he was that unpredictable. Sometimes, he wished he could take Damon to daycare and being his two year old daughter to work.

"Some father figure you are. How could you hire her for this movie knowing her life was a total mess? She's in pieces, Ric, and you know as well as I do she can't do this film," Damon growled.

"Damon. All stars have this phase. It's called being free and having fun. I never thought I'd be the one giving you this lecture. You're supposed to be the fun brother," he moaned. He was not cut out for this job. Why, oh why, did he cast his best friend as a leading role?

Well, at least it ensured that every teenage girl on the planet would see this movie just to catch a mere glimpse of Damon Salvatore. Seriously, it was like he was the Messiah or some shit.

Damon growled. "Alaric. Find another celebrity couple to play the two main parts. I don't know, maybe Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson and it can be the third Hunger Games. I mean, obviously they'll be less hot than us, but what can you do?"

"What, are you in love with Elena or something?"

Alaric waited for an answer, before realising Damon had hung up.

Damon had refused to let Elena out of the house, or his sight, for three days now.

In fact, Elena referred to it as kidnapping (in between her constant tantrums and rages), apart from the fact she was in her own apartment, in which he had no problem making himself at home. Damon took the liberty of unloading half his penthouse into hers, which it turned out, to her chagrin, was plenty big enough for two people. He even had the nerve to move half of her clothes to the guest room in order to make space in her walk-in closet for his twenty Rolex watches, countless slick Armani suits, his silk Hermés ties dyed with the finest pigments and his Italian shoes, custom crafted with the finest leather money could buy. His eight carat gold cufflinks were surrounding her alarm clock. His colognes and hair products (but hell, they paid off, when you touched his curls they were as soft and bouncy as if he were in a constant hair advertisement) had taken up all the space on her bathroom counter. It was an inexorable apocalypse of maleness. It was as if she was in (she said the following words with as much scorn as she could muster) a _committed relationship_.

Damon had, in his superior way, called his maid, because apparently Elena's room was such an eyesore he could barely set foot in it. Well, that was probably due to the amount of clothes and god knows what that had covered her plush carpet, basically barring entry. When his maid arrived, she was decked out in uniform, complete with a frilly apron and complementary broom, referring to her as Miss Gilbert and him as Mr Salvatore in a rather sickening Southern accent.

"Look, you trailer park bitch," Elena had said, like a coyote cornering a rabbit, "You do not touch any of my stuff. And furthermore," she paused for effect, trying to regain her cool attitude despite the fact she was wearing a pair of fluffy rabbit slippers, a shirt stole from Damon's wardrobe (despite the fact she had admonished his 'infringing on a girl's space' almost every day) and a pair of underwear given to her as a joke which had the words 'blow me' in cursive scrawled across the behind, "You will not, under any circumstances tell Damon about our little chat,".

Damon had moved in to her house without her consent. He had crept up on her, in a way. Elena had suddenly realised that morning, well, fancy that, Damon Salvatore's my roommate. Well, forced roommate. He had refused to let her leave her apartment until she 'discussed her issues' with him, hiding her keys while she was sleeping.

Elena hated coddling and she hated weakness. Preening and giggling and acting the way you think men want you to act - not her thing.

She had been psychoanalysed by Damon so many times in the past three days she thought she would explode into a million smithereens, leaving behind only a camel coloured trench coat with a green plaid lining (Burberry, if brands mean anything to you) and a lingering smell of Chanel no. 5. Speaking frankly, this seemed a rather glamorous and desirable cause of death to her. Fuck, she was shallow, she thought.

But, seriously, every three minutes he would be waving his home cooked carbonara under her nose (and shit, it was good) which her figure really did not need and then get all angry and entitled when he found her throwing it back up in the bathroom. What did he expect?

She was a Victoria Secret Angel, for crying out loud, she could not, would not, eat.

Why had he even moved in anyway? It was clearly some misled kamikaze mission (and she had tried her upmost to make this difficult for him), trying to be white knight and combat her mental issues. But Elena Gilbert was not some weak little princess.

Yeah, she thought, wincing at the memory, I may have given him the wrong impression. Crying on his shoulder in the bathroom after admitting to having chucked up the entire meal? Not classy. Letting him sleep in your bed every night like some overly loving dog? Fuck no.

But his puppy eyes were so clear and blue and made her skin burn like drugs never did, and his chest was warm and soft and hard all at the same time, providing her with the perfect sleeping surface. In the past two nights, she had quickly gotten used to, for the first time, having a man sleep beside her, feeling his slow, rhythmic breaths, cool and constant against her neck.

She would wait one more day, she promised, before she threw him out on his ass.

Elena was sitting on her window sill, almost childlike, like a fairy from a picture book, drawing with her finger on the steamed up windows, and watching her designs drip away with the condensation. She had draped Damon's spare blanket over her legs, and hugged her knees to her chest. The window took up one entire wall, and the New York City skyline loomed, puffing and twitching and alive, even at night. It made her feel very small and very insignificant. She almost forgot she was a household name, and nearly everyone in every American state knew who she was.

After a while, Damon padded towards her, clad in sweatpants and holed socks (which he had taken to wearing around the house in order to homogenise with her 'grungy' look, as he not-so-affectionately called it). Without saying a word, he sat behind her on the ledge, spreading his legs to accommodate her, leaving his feet in her lap.

"You know what they say. Big feet, big..."

Elena scowled. "For the love of Christ, fuck off Damon. Can I just leave my own flat?" she huffed childishly, raking a hand angrily through her hair, "Please?"

"Not unless you talk to me," he shifted underneath her, and it felt as if there was only him and her in the entire world, the warmth of his chest radiating on to her back, "About things. About why you were sick in the bathroom, and why in hell is such a beautiful girl on drugs," he whispered in her ear, bending his head so it was almost resting on her shoulder.

"Welcome to the real world, Damon," she hissed, "Every girl who's anyone in Hollywood doesn't eat. I don't have time for your little fantasy where everything is saving puppies and homeless children and the occasional bulimic model,"

Wow. Kitten had some claws, Damon thought, scrambling for a scathing rebuke.

Maybe that was why he liked her so much. Her fire, her vivacity. It reminded him of his mother, browned from the Italian sun, gold hoops glinting in her ears, hidden among a sea of black curls hit by the Atlanta sun, her tirades in her native language and continuous baking of panettone causing the neighbours gossip. He looked into Elena's eyes and remembered the clap of silver tipped shoes against American linoleum, dancing the Tarantella around their kitchen. Damon saw, for a moment, his mother, tanned and young and lively amongst the indolent, wan women of the small, American town, who lived only for gossip and child rearing.

Elena got out of his lap and stormed to the door. Before he could miss cradling her body against his own and the floral smell of her neck, she was banging against the door, using her fists, one after the other. It was only a few seconds later that he realised that mingled with the pounding of fists was the sound of cracked, girlish sobs.

"Mia cara, my Elena,"

Shit, he cursed, every time she cried or showed the tiniest bit of emotion he went all soft and Italian. Damon blamed his mother for this. He just couldn't help himself - he was a glutton for punishment.

There were tears all over her face, her eyes swollen and red, wet tracks mapping her face. She could only sit on her doormat, leaning her head against the door.

"Che succede, poco bandita?" he asked, placing a hand on both shoulders. She met his eyes, looking pouty and red nosed and cross and just a little bit cute.

"I don't understand your stupid language, Damon," she stormed, and he had to crouch down to her level to hear her mutterings. Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

"It's Italian," he chuckled, "It means, what's the matter, little bandit?" He dug a silk handkerchief out of the pocket of his sweats (like fucking Mary Poppins, she thought) and dabbed her tears.

"It's the MET ball tonight, Damon. My favourite event of the year. How am I going to go if I can't leave my apartment?" With that, she burst into angry tears.

Guilt was not a Salvatore emotion. This was a quote regularly employed my Damon's dear old dad, Guiseppe, the cold hearted bastard. And at this moment, it was safe to say, Damon felt guilty.

"Look, baby, you can still go," he said, taking one bony hand in his.

Elena smirked, smug with her victory.

"On one condition. I'm your date,"


	8. Eight

Elena smoothed out her dress in the mirror, the green velvet refusing to stay flat. It clung to her curves like a dream.

Too bad getting ready hadn't been such a dream.

She was in such a bad fucking mood because one Damon Salvatore insisted on accompanying her to the MET Gala. At any other flashy occasion, she would be fine with having a new boy toy to flaunt and hang on her every word – but not today. The MET Gala was about expression, coming together with others who have a passion for acting, for theatre, for film. It was the one night a year she finally got to be herself – and now Damon was intruding on it. She just knew he would rub it in her own image in her face, swanning around like the attractive bastard he was, being his usual audacious, attention-seeking self.

Damon Salvatore would be in his suit as per usual– luxurious black satin covering his points, his usually untamed, rolled out of bed hair slicked back into a gorgeous fifties coiffeur, offering perfunctory nods in her direction every time Elena said anything, as if she was so unbearably shallow she wasn't even worth talking to.

But what made Elena's heart really sink was the fact that her Damon, the snuggly, warm, comforting Damon (that had lived in her house wearing his sweatpants and nothing else save for a hoodie that he begrudgingly wore to answer the door, which Elena (Damon nicknamed her the little packrat because of this habit) had stolen from yet another boyfriend) would be gone as of that night. He would be replaced with Damon that hated her (this reminded Elena of Jekyll and Hyde).

* * *

Elena was so infuriated. She couldn't sit still for even a minute for Caroline, her long suffering stylist, to pin up her hair, and she snarled every time she was jostled or jolted, causing Caroline, who was usually so confident, to be nervy. Caroline sure as hell wasn't going to lose her job over some diva who was being particularly bitchy one night. Elena knew how terrified the blonde was of this – one false move and Caroline was out on her ass for good, replaced by someone else desperate to make it in Hollywood styling.

When Elena had been younger, just finding her feet in the acting business, she had seen Caroline as a friend. Elena knew so little of the lavish, backstabbing Hollywood life that she would befriend anyone that was even a tiny bit nice to her. Caroline was sweet. Bubbly. Made her laugh till her sides hurt. Sometimes a tad overeager.

But as time wore on, Elena found new 'friends'. Friends who wore fake smiles to match their fake relationships and let their ceaseless flow of money run through their fingers like water. Gone was little Elena Gilbert who liked artistic directors and writing scripts in her bedroom. She kept Caroline up all night creating a style tailored for 'the new her', straying as far as possible from the plain long sleeved shirts and jeans of her conservative, safe old self. It was dubbed 'grunge chic' by the tabloids.

Elena didn't know that Caroline had just broken up with her boyfriend, Klaus, as she knotted Elena's hair into a million tiny plaits before the ball. And all Caroline wanted was her best friend back so she could have a moment and cry for the next hour over Ben and Jerry's and a chick flick. But she knew that Elena was long gone.

* * *

Damon sat beside Elena in the back of the BMW, which escorted them to the venue. He chuckled as she seethed beside him, arms crossed, causing her cleavage to become more prominent, and his forehead dampened with the effort to not look affected by her. Damon laid a hand on her arm, and she jumped slightly, her curls as unmoving as if she was a painted portrait – knotted into countless curls, which wreathed her head like a crown.

"Is kitten angry because she didn't get to pull her independent woman act?"

Elena's scowl deepened, staring complacently out of the window, lips pursed.

* * *

The MET Gala had outdone itself this year. The each piece of shining glass trickling from the central chandelier was as natural and as beautiful in the dim light as snowdrops breaking through the ice of winter. Light pooled in the wide ballroom perfectly, enhancing the features of the beautiful and the damned which haunted it just enough to give them a soft and almost supernatural glow, but not glaring or unflattering. The marbled floor swirled and shone, accustomed to the click of heels on its surface. The bar reached out in a curve, the low bursts of lascivious talk from sordid older male actors constant, and the alcohol was flowing.

Damon was hot. I might as well admit it, Elena thought. His eyes burned, a cocktail of seductiveness and insouciance that not even the Bloody Marys served at the bar could top.

Elena was surrounded by sleazy men, pushing drinks towards her and breathing liquor-laced breath into her face. Normally, she would have picked the hottest from the lot, lavished him with attention, before fucking him in the bathroom. Paparazzi lurked in corners, while Elena talked uninterrupted, flashing smiles as, well, misleadingly sultry, as that of the men's were shark-like. Elena Gilbert was in her element.

"Do you wanna, I don't know, go somewhere more…exclusive?" said a guy at the back.

That guy was Mason Lockwood. Elena peered over the crowd with hooded eyes, her cheeks burning red.

Not tonight.

She searched the crowd rapidly, and her eyes eventually landed on Damon. Salvatore meant saviour, right? And he sure did look like some kind of modern day knight in shining armour – so devastatingly handsome, charming all the ladies with a simple wink of an eye. Unlike all these sorry excuses for men.

But Damon was busy, she thought, detecting a certain unbridled jealousy in her tone. He had one hand travelling up the thigh on a long-legged blonde, who was drooling all over him and his stupid innuendos.

Huh. So she wasn't the only one that he used those on. Not like she was jealous, or anything.

Mason seemed to notice that Elena wasn't giving him her full attention.  
"I'm planning on fucking you, so if you wouldn't mind, sweet cheeks…"

Mason gestured towards the bathroom, pupils widening like a wolf hunting at midnight, green irises twisting and focusing, gesturing with his hands towards the bathroom.

Elena was never embarrassed in public. But a deep blush spread from her collarbone however, and she cast doe eyes to the floor guiltily. Maybe she had got used to a guy like Damon, who for all his bravado, respected her, took care of her. That was clearly all an act, she thought, bitterly, as Damon whispered something in the blonde's ear as she giggled almost maniacally in an attempt

"The great Elena Gilbert isn't… scared?" Mason turned to his crowd of leering male friends, ever the performer, "Is she?"

Elena turned to Mason, seductive and teeming with faux innocence.

"Lead the way, handsome," She looked once over her shoulder, "You, get me a cosmopolitan for when I come back,"

All men were the same, she thought, fishing around in her purse for an emergency condom. And everyone had to have someone.

* * *

Damon couldn't help thinking that this girl was not nearly as interesting as Elena. Or intriguing. Or beautiful. (Or mentally ill, he added in his head). In fact, she was just another self-obsessed, giggling teenager, and each thing she said was more boring than the next.

"Do you want to, um, get out of here?" she simpered, touching her glossy lips suggestively.

"Why don't we just get it over with here? I like my women spontaneous," Damon Salvatore had a knack of making everything he said sound like a good idea. This was boosted by the fact that the model he was being propositioned by was probably not the sharpest knife in the toolbox.

She ran one manicured hand up his chest, hooking it around his top button, slipping it loose…

"Are you thinking of what it will be like when you fuck me?" she said softly.

Actually, Damon was thinking of the emerald ring that adorned Elena's second finger on her right hand, and how there was a pale pink scar just on the joint of her middle on, where the Gilbert family dog had bitten her. Elena had told him this half asleep, stumbling around the kitchen at four am while he looked for her medication frantically one evening.

* * *

"Snap out of it…" he growled, and the blonde's eyebrows scrunched up in confusion.

"Excuse me?" she asked bossily, putting a hand on one hip.

"Anything for a beautiful lady," he smirked devilishly, and dragged her to the bathroom.

The first thing he noticed when he entered the remarkably well decorated bathroom was unmistakable moans, her long, desperate whimpers, making his cock hardened faster than ever, straining against his trousers. This was because these were moans from a certain girl that he couldn't forget. Pretty little Elena Gilbert.

The second thing he noticed was the anger. The jealousy. How Damon wanted to punch whatever guy had his trousers around his ankles in the stall, whatever guy was having his way with his Elena.

He could hear her tiny body banging against the door, and momentarily worried for her safety, imagining her delicate bird-like frame breaking with the force.

The guy was shouting too, Elena's name echoing around the bathroom for anyone to hear, and Damon stood there, in the expensively furnished bathroom, the blonde on his arm still confused and horny.

He was silent for a long time.

"Fuck you, Elena Gilbert,"

* * *

**Firstly, I'm so sorry for the wait! My doc manager was not working : / To make it up to you, ill try to do the next chapter as quick as possible. Also, have you guys got any ideas for the next chapter? It would be appreciated x**


End file.
